Price starts from
€48
/month
Freemium
Subscription
Alternatives

What is Thinkific? ✨

Thinkific is an online platform that allows individuals and businesses to create, market, and sell their own online courses. It provides users with the tools they need to deliver educational content in a structured and accessible way. The platform focuses on empowering educators and entrepreneurs to transform their expertise into a thriving learning business.

What Thinkific can be used for? ✨

Thinkific is a great tool for community builders who want to engage and educate their community members. Here’s how they can use it effectively:

  • Creating Courses: Community leaders can develop courses tailored to the interests of their group. These can include video lessons, quizzes, and downloadable guides that help members learn new skills or knowledge relevant to the community.
  • Membership Areas: Thinkific allows the creation of membership sites where community builders can offer different content based on membership levels. This can include exclusive courses or special resources for premium members, helping to keep the community funded and active.
  • Discussion Forums: To keep members talking and connected, Thinkific includes features for discussions and forums. Members can ask questions, share ideas, and help each other out, which makes the community more engaging and supportive.
  • Live Events and Webinars: Community leaders can host live sessions or webinars, which are great for real-time interaction. These can be used for training, answering member questions, or just bringing everyone together to strengthen community bonds.
  • Tracking Progress: Thinkific provides tools to see how members are doing with the courses, such as who’s finishing them or which parts are most popular. This information helps leaders understand what’s working and what needs improvement.
  • Custom Look and Feel: Community builders can make their Thinkific site match their community’s style. This includes things like choosing colors, adding logos, and even using a custom website address that fits the community brand.

Features ✨

  • Custom web themes and domains

  • Quizzes and assignments

  • Community spaces and notifications

  • Reactions & Threads

  • Communities Analytics Dashboard (on Grow pricing plan)

  • Mobile app

  • Drip scheduling

  • Bundles, coupons and cross-selling

  • Live Events

  • Digital downloads

  • Profiles & Mentions

  • Memberships

  • Community Moderator Role (coming soon)

What are the limitations? ✨

Based on the user reviews of Thinkific, community builders face several issues and restrictions with the platform, which can be summarized as follows:

  • Limited Analytics and Features: Users find the analytics offered by Thinkific insufficient. Additionally, community features are described as buggy and lacking in comparison to other platforms. There is also a lack of essential features like push notifications and the ability to export course content or set up a review and tracking mode for course proofing before publication.
  • Poor Integration and Customization: Thinkific seems to struggle with integration with other apps and tools, and customization options are limited. Users have to "hack" the system or pay for add-ons to meet their needs, which can be costly and inefficient.
  • Customer Support Issues: Many users report difficulties in getting timely and effective support from Thinkific. Issues include unresponsive customer service, especially on weekends, and a lack of direct contact with support personnel.
  • SCORM and LMS Limitations: The platform lacks SCORM functionality, which is a standard for many educational and training environments, and has minimal Learning - Management System (LMS) capabilities. This restricts the types of content and training methods that can be effectively delivered and tracked.
  • Affiliate Management Difficulties: Managing affiliates on Thinkific is cumbersome, with no bulk actions for enrolling or approving commissions, making the process time-consuming and inefficient.
  • Technical Limitations and Costs: Advanced features often require knowledge of APIs, webhooks, or third-party apps, which can introduce additional costs and complexity. The platform's reliance on plugins for extended functionality leads to issues like caching and additional expenses.

Languages ✨

  • 30+ languages